She and I | Page 7

particular person, his, or her, antecedents, prospects, and position,
who had but remained for ten consecutive minutes within a radius of
one mile of their house. To the Dashers I would consequently go, by all
means--thank Providence for the suggestion, and their existence!
Lady Dasher, the head of this all-wise circle, was the youngest daughter
of a deceased Irish peer, whom she was continually bringing on the
carpet, and causing--unhappy ghost that he was--to retrace his weary
way from wherever the spirits of defunct Hibernian nobles most do
congregate.
She did not do this through family pride, or with any boastful intention,
but simply from sheer morbidity. She was always scoring down

grievances in the present by looking back on the past. With her, it was
all repining and retrospect. When her poor father, the earl, was alive,
she was never slighted in this way. Had her dear papa but now existed,
Mistress So-and-So would have returned her call, and not insulted her
by her palpable neglect. It was very Christian-like and charitable to say
otherwise; but she knew better: it was on account of her being poor,
and living in a small house. Oh, yes! she was very well aware of that;
yet, although she could not keep up a grand establishment and was poor,
she was proud, and would never forget that she was an earl's daughter.
She would not be ground down with impunity! Even the worm will turn:
and so on. You can understand her character almost without another
word of description.
In spite of being a kindly-hearted soul at bottom, she was really, I
believe, the most morbid and melancholic person that ever breathed,--at
least, in my experience. Should you, unfortunately, be forced to remain
for any length of time in her presence, she had a most singularly
depressing influence on your spirits. Wet blanket? Bless your heart!
that would be no name for her. She was a patent shower-bath, coming
down on all your cherished sentiments, hopes, and schemes, with a
"whish" of heavy extinguishment. The cheeriest, sprightliest mortal in
the world could not have continued gay in her society. Mark Tapley
would have met his match in her, I'm certain.
Next to the demise of her lamented parent--which was indeed an after
consideration--Lady Dasher's marriage was the source and well-spring
of all her woes. She had espoused, as soon as she had a will of her own,
a handsome young gin distiller, who "ran" a large manufactory in Essex.
People said it was entirely a love match; but, whether that was the case
or no, all I know is, that on changing the honoured name of
Planetree--the first Earl had been boot-black to the conquering
Cromwell in Ireland--for the base-born patronymic Dasher, all her
troubles began. Her noble relatives cut her dead in the first instance, as
Dasher, aspiring though he was, aspired a trifle too high. The
connection was never acknowledged; and his papa-in-law, utterly
ignoring his entity, never gave him the honour of an invitation to
Ballybrogue Castle, the ancestral seat of the Planetrees in Tipperary.

This was not the worst of it, either. Dasher, forgetting that simplicity of
his forefathers which had promoted his fortunes, learnt on his marriage
to launch out into unheard-of extravagances, spending his
hardly-gained substance in riotous living. He kept open house in town
and country, getting laughed at, en parenthese, by the toadies who
spunged upon him; failed; got into "the Gazette;" and?--died of a
broken heart. Poor Dasher!
On the death of her other half--it is problematical which half he was,
whether better or worse--Lady Dasher found herself left with a couple
of daughters and a few thousands, which her husband had taken care to
settle on her so as to be beyond the reach of his creditors. The provision
was ample to have enabled her to live in comfort, if she had practised
the slightest economy; but, never having learnt that species of common
sense, called "savoir faire," which is useful in every-day life, Lady
Dasher soon outran the constable. She then had to appeal to her father,
Earl Planetree, who, now that poor Dasher disgraced the family
escutcheon no longer by living, acknowledged her once more, relieving
her necessities; and when he, too, died, he bequeathed her a fair income,
on which, by dint of hard struggling, she contrived to support existence
and repine at her bitter lot.
She was in the habit of telling people--who, between ourselves, were
hopelessly ignorant that such a person as the late earl had ever breathed,
and cared less, probably, about the fact--that had her poor papa been
yet alive, things would have been "very different with her;" an assertion
of questionable accuracy.
There are some persons in this world who can never by any possibility
take a